Kongkham Guest House Luang Prabang

... at 8 p.m. Luckily I brought a book and a flashlight so I was able to read for a while before trying to get to bed. <br><br>According to Claire, the family woke up at 4:30 a.m. in order to be out the door in time for the sunrise. Our guide didn't wake us up until nearly 9 a.m., giving us a full twelve hours in bed. We woke up feeling groggy - it definitely wasn't a solid twelve hours of sleep. The mats were rock hard and roosters provided unwanted wake-up calls throughout the morning. After ...

... s birthd*y, so we got very festive: we immedi*tely opted for the "free beer if you order * pizz*" de*l, *nd *lso bought sever*l "gir*ffes," which were huge cont*iners sh*ped like * pint gl*ss but prob*bly cont*ining five or six pints with * centr*l core filled with ice to keep the beer cool. Genius. We met * guy from London c*lled Tom who joined our t*ble. Ch*rlotte *lso kindly sne*ked off down the ro*d to * c*ke shop *nd got D*rren * c*ke. The c*ndles ...

... so desperate for bread and cheese having been in Laos for some time now. However, food in Van Vieng had more of a Wetherspoons feel to it; whilst Luang Prabang's cafe culture was hard not to indulge in. It reminded me of Wanstead's sprawling cafe scene and so was a comforting change from the Asian way of life.<br><br>On our first day we hired bikes to cycle around the sleepy town. We visited a few Wats with glittering mirror mosaics and novice monks floating ...

... with them consisted of a riding them whilst our mahouts bellowed instructions at them, riding them and issuing instructions ourselves (which were all ignored) and finally and most fun, bathing the elephants. This consisted of riding them into the river and ending up equally as drenched as the elephants but I loved every minute of it.<br><br>The following day we were up at sunrise to bathe the elephants once again. Unfortunately one of the biggest and ...

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... are usually there cleaning, talking, or both. The free breakfast for the hostel is setout, Corn Flakes, sliced bread, baguettes, two kinds of jam, strawberry and a yellow one, instant coffee, and bananas. A few early birds are up eating their cereal with a cup of coffee each. The air is cool, no clouds in the sky...yet. <br> CNN international is on the tube, they're squawking about something that I can't be bothered to listen to. I say Sabaidee to everyone, go grab my computer ...

... putting the hands together in a prayer-like pose and bowing slightly. Some of the more progressive men along the line insisted on a western handshake for the falangs. Some ditherers both nopped and shook hands.<br><br>At this stage we could tell who the bride was but not the groom, who could have been any one of about six men. The bride was a rather diminutive girl wearing a shiny dark blue costume who had her hair done up into what looked like a stupa with gold bands around it. She ...